


Undone

by vulcantastic (juxtapose)



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 19:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14143356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juxtapose/pseuds/vulcantastic
Summary: Between seasons one and two. It was Tomas Ortega’s first exposure to failure, with the highest stakes imaginable.





	Undone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cutiesonthehorizon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutiesonthehorizon/gifts).



> Had so much fun participating in the Exorcist fanworks exchange! This is for a dear fandom friend, cutiesonthehorizon. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> I really just wanted to capture some of the fears Tomas might be grappling with and how he and Marcus might talk about them openly. All feedback is welcome. :)
> 
> TW: References to suicide and slightly graphic imagery

It started with the 15-year-old in New Hampshire.

Perhaps it was because they shared a name. Perhaps it was because he reminded Tomas a bit of his nephew, Luis. Or maybe it was the image of the boy’s deep green eyes tainted with unadulterated fear, searing into Tomas’ consciousness whenever he closed his eyes.

But really, it was Tomas Ortega’s first exposure to failure, with the highest stakes imaginable.

Thomas Kent threw himself off the balcony of his family’s Burlington home, because the thing inside him told him to. The last time Tomas saw the boy, he was a heap of twisted limbs, ambulance lights dancing on-and-off mockingly between a coal-black sky.

After the police interviewed him, Tomas ducked into the Kents’ neighbors’ backyard and leaned against the shed wall, shaking. He wanted to cry, to let out  _ something _ . Instead he looked up at the starless abyss above, his mind blank. He didn’t keep track of how long he stood there.

Marcus took it better, because of course he did. He’d experienced this before. And while Marcus was more prone to open expressions of emotion than Tomas had ever been, the former somehow always managed to bounce back quickly enough to face the demons another day since his stint at St. Aquinas.

Tomas could do that too. He could. He had to.

A few days later, when they were driving at four in the morning with a vast stretch of grayscale road ahead of them, Marcus asked, “You all right?”

“Yes,” Tomas said, because it was the only thing that made sense to say, despite the fact that Marcus probably heard him tossing and turning, despite the fact that some mornings he woke up to Marcus peering at him from his side of the motel room with curious concern. “Of course.”

Marcus didn’t ask him again, and Tomas was grateful for it.

But it wasn’t like Tomas didn’t notice--it wasn’t like he didn’t pick up on how for weeks after, Marcus would speak to him as to a child, telling him, “I can handle this one” when they walked into a particularly unsettling house case.

The nightmares started around that time--piercing through him like ice in his veins, but nothing like the prophetic visions that prodded his mind at random intervals. They were just as visceral, but the nightmares had a knack for making him remember what he tried so fervently to push to the back of his mind in daylight hours. They weren’t  _ useful _ . They didn’t point him to some higher cause that God wanted him to pursue. No. They were just nightmares.

Closing his eyes meant hell.

By the time a month had passed after the Kent incident, it was as if he and Marcus had gone back to the beginning. As if Tomas hadn’t spent months training with Marcus, getting to know him, understanding and honing what they could do as a team to fight off the darkness.

So to fight off the darkness rattling in his own brain, Tomas decided to take a different approach, which was less of an approach and more of a bottle of whiskey that fell into his hands off the liquor store shelf, into a brown bag, and onto his lap.

He felt immediately guilty after the purchase, feeling the thing heavy in the backpack on his shoulders as he and Marcus walked up to yet another gray motel they’d call home for a few days to handle a case in Maine.

The  man at the check-in desk nodded to them in greeting. Marcus walked a little ahead of Tomas, but before the former could request their usual arrangement, Tomas called out:

“Two single rooms, please.”

Marcus turned to face him, nonplussed. “What, you don’t want to go Dutch on a fancy suite overlooking the trash bins?” He wiggled his eyebrows a bit. Tomas normally found it endearing, but today, he wanted nothing but to curl up and go to sleep and shut away Marcus and the yellow sunset in the window behind him.

Tomas shrugged with as much nonchalance as he could muster. “I am not feeling so well. Think I’m coming down with something.”

“Right.” Marcus looked at him for a long moment, then turned to the man with the hat and dug some cash out of his pocket.

 

* * *

 

They headed out of the check-in office to their respective side-by-side rooms. Marcus tossed a pair of keys to Tomas, who barely caught them, having to uncross his arms which he hadn’t realized he’d been holding tightly in front of his chest.

“Y’know, our budget ain’t exactly ocean-sized. Vow of poverty and all that,” Marcus said, fiddling with the keys to unlock his door. “You think I  _ want  _ to share a room? You snore.”

There was laughter in his voice. Tomas cracked a hollow smile. “I know. But I’ve also heard how much you whine when you get a throat cold. Better to avoid the situation altogether.”

“Oi. I’m not  _ that _ bad. Not my fault there’s no cure for hay fever.”

Tomas fixated on the rusty doorknob in front of him. All he had to do was get into the room, and he could be alone. Decompress until they made their house call the next morning--a seven-year-old girl. If he could just hold out for a few more moments before--

“Tomas.”

Marcus had already opened his door but still stood outside. Cool blue eyes looked him up and down with...pity. Again with the damn pity.

“You good?” he asked.

“Yes. Good,” Tomas muttered, finally jiggling the key into its correct position. His entire body relaxed at the sound of the lock clicking. “Think I’ll lie down.”

He didn’t wait for Marcus’ response before practically stumbling into the room and slamming the door shut behind him.

The motel room was dark and smelled faintly of weed and Old Spice. Tomas switched on a single table lamp and flopped down on the bed, staring up at the dirty ceiling. Now, completely alone, this was the first time in days he could let himself truly relax. Marcus’ constant, steady eye on him was unnerving, and perhaps some time alone was what he needed. Perhaps that would fix this.

Weariness clouded his peripheral vision, as if he could see only in vignette, and if he could just close his eyes for one moment--

_ Splat _ .  _ A body hitting a concrete floor. Mrs. Kent’s hoarse screams _ \--

He sat up sharply. Paced the room. Flicked the lights on and off in the bathroom. Went outside, inhaled a few deep breaths of cold air, then marched back in again.

The room seemed smaller now. Tomas looked around, frantic, wondering if there was some way he could expand it, claw through the walls, so he could be alone in the open, where he could stay and where he could run.

The bottle-shaped bulge in his backpack on the edge of the bed stared at him through the fabric. Just waiting. A strange voice he barely recognized knocked on the back of his consciousness and said,  _ It’s rude to keep people waiting. _

Tomas made his way over to the bed. Sat down, pulled the bottle out of the bag. He almost wanted some sign--some indication that God was watching, that God was...what? Disappointed in him? And why should God pay any mind to Tomas, anyway? There were plenty of other people who needed Him.

Cursing at his own selfishness, he twisted the plastic cap off the mouth of the bottle.

Tomas took three long, straight swigs and found himself smiling slightly in response to the burning sensation. It wasn’t as if communion wine had exactly done the trick since he’d taken his vows. And while it was never asked of him to abandon the vice altogether, Tomas found being sober made him think clearer.

He didn’t want to think clearer now. Or at all.

So down, down his consciousness went, sinking deeper into the bottle until nothing around him was left.

 

* * *

Tomas opens his eyes slowly. He isn’t sure how long he’s been lying there, but it’s dark enough that when he lifts a hand in front of his face, it takes a moment for him to adjust well enough to see the faint outline of his fingers. He wonders idly what time it is, but before he can begin to mentally ready himself to sit up and look at the clock on the bedside table, he hears a voice breaking into the quiet:

“Tio Tomas?”

Sitting up sharply, Tomas looks around, trying to discern where Luis’ voice is coming from. “Luis? What...what are you doing here? Where are you?”

The boy steps into view in front of the window as moonlight peeks through the shades. He beckons Tomas with an urgent hand, eyes wide with excitement. “I have to show you something. Come quick!”

Tomas stands up, feeling the weight of every limb. He begins to hobble over to Luis, who darts out the door just as he approaches. Squinting out into the motel parking lot, Tomas shakes his head and starts after him.

“Luis--Luis, hold on a moment--”

His nephew rounds the corner of the building and jogs behind the dumpster, calling again: “Come on!”

Tomas feels as though he’s taking two steps for every eight he’s making in his mind--the disconnect is making him queasy--and when he walks out into the back road, Luis is gone.

Tomas stops. Folds his hands behind his head, turns this way and that, calling the boy’s name. Closing his eyes, he tries to ground himself outside the pounding dizziness. Then, the sweet-light tones he hasn’t heard in months:

“Look.”

Jessica is looking at him, all concern and affection in big, sincere eyes. She points to somewhere--something--beyond her, tilting her head slightly to the side in an expression of...curiosity?

“He has a question for you,” she whispers.

\--One, two footsteps behind Tomas. Agonizingly slow. The hair on the back of Tomas’ neck rises. He clenches his fists, prayer spilling into the front of his mind as he turns to face the sound:  _ Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos, santificado sea tu nombre-- _

Thomas Kent is not so much standing in front of Tomas as he is leaning, for it would be impossible to stand on legs twisted at such angles. His spine, snapped in various places, has him bent forward in such a way that his left hand, dangling from a dislocated arm, drags on the concrete. Blood pools under him, and Tomas trails his eyes up to the source--his split skull.

“Why didn’t you save me, Father Tomas?” the boy asks. His voice is different than when Tomas last heard it--once laced with demonic tones, it’s trembling now. “Why didn’t you bring me back?”

He moves forward again. One crooked step, then another. Tomas stumbles back, reaches up instinctively for the cross he wears around his neck--but it isn’t there. “I am so sorry, Thomas,” he chokes out, “I’m so sorry--”

“Bring me back.” The boy is crying, and Tomas notices one of his eyes hanging out of its socket--and suddenly it’s not his eyes or his face at all. Black eyes, translucent skin, blood in place of tears--the demon in Thomas Kent is smiling with yellow crooked teeth.

It leans forward and hisses in Tomas’ ear, sending a shudder through his body:

“We won.”

 

* * *

 

 

“No!”

Tomas sat up, his own voice almost foreign to him in its shakiness, tears thick in his throat cancelling out the dehydration from the alcohol in his veins.

He wrapped his arms tight around himself, his whole body shaking uncontrollably. He leaned forward, gasping for air, and it was then he noticed a dark figure hovering at the bedpost. Reeling backward, he almost stood to greet the intruder in a last-ditch attempt to defend himself when he saw the figure raise his hands in surrender--wily arms and fingers he knew so well.

“Hey...hey. Tomas.” Marcus took a step forward. Then another, when Tomas didn’t flinch back. The blurry parking lot lights streaming in from the doorway cut across his face, confirming the familiar features--worry lines, a tad bit of stubble, knit brow. “It’s all right.”

Tomas exhaled slowly, his hands falling loosely to his sides. The room was spinning. When had the room started spinning?

Marcus sat on the edge of the bed. He seemed very far away and very close all at once.

“You’re all right.” Marcus leaned forward, a hand hovering just above Tomas’ arm. When Tomas didn’t flinch away, he gave Tomas’ arm a reassuring squeeze. “Take it easy now.”

“Marcus…” Tomas swallowed, tasting remnants of Jack Daniels on his tongue, ill at the thought of having another sip of the stuff. After a few seconds of silence, he met Marcus’ eyes, confused. “Did you...break into my room?”

Marcus scoffed as if such a suggestion was unfounded. “I don’t do that  _ all  _ the time,” he said, and then nodded to the doorway behind him. “You literally left the door open.”

As if on cue, a cool wind danced into the room from the cracked door. The sharp sensation of air on his face made Tomas realize he’d managed to sweat through layers of clothes. “Oh.”

“Went out to take a walk. Saw you’d left your door open, and at first I thought you were headin’ out yourself, until I heard you...well. Y’know.”

Tomas ran a hand through his damp hair, shame burning under his skin. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” replied Marcus, not unkindly. “Just tell me what happened.”

Blood, black eyes, pleads for help. Images of the nightmare teased his brain, and Tomas shuddered involuntarily. He said nothing, afraid of what might come out if he opened his mouth.

Marcus broke the silence. “Look.”

Tomas closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing he could just sink into the mattress, but there was Marcus, at his side, talking at him through all of the noise in his brain, because of course he was. Of course he’d known. Marcus was a lot of things, but certainly not oblivious.

“I know loss better than I know my own name sometimes. I know what you’re going through. Thought I’d give you some space, but I…” He sighed, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands folded as if in prayer, and perhaps he was. “Seeing you like this...Tomas, bloody hell, why didn’t you talk to me?”

“You shut me out.” The accusation came out harsher than Tomas intended, and he all but winced. The whiskey was talking through him now that he’d managed to catch his breath. “What was I supposed to do? You’re off fighting hell on earth, and I’m watching from the sidelines.”

“I was  _ worried  _ for you,” Marcus muttered, resting his forehead on his hands. His tone was soft, less with pity now than with regret. “Do you think I want you to turn out...jaded? Cynical? Traipsing around throwing holy water and wondering, deep down, if any of it is what God intended?” The last question is almost inaudible, muffled every few syllables by the night wind. “Do you think I want you to turn out like me?”

The question lingered between them for a few moments. “Like you…” Tomas replied, shaking his head. Words felt heavy, slow to come out. “Someone who’s made a difference. Someone who saves people. I don’t think it would be so bad.”

Marcus turned again to look at him, eyes dark with solemnity. “That boy’s death was not your fault.”

Tomas couldn’t help but laugh a bit. He tilted his head back, trying to shut out the spinning sensation by closing his eyes. Leaning back against the wall, he let his head loll to the side. If he stopped moving, perhaps everything else would. “Then whose was it?” he slurred, tears mixing with the laughter in his voice.

He heard the rustling of Marcus’ windbreaker as he sat up fully. “No one’s. Everyone’s,” he said simply. “We could sit here debating whose fault it was, or we can remind ourselves that we can’t save them all, Tomas. We can’t.”

Tomas opened his eyes. Marcus was looking at him. Knowingly. He sat up, leaning forward and jabbing a finger into Marcus’ chest. “You, with all your talk of...of protecting innocent lives in God’s name. You would trivialize an innocent teenager’s death?”

Despite the fire in his eyes, despite the fact that he looked as though he had a million accusations he could throw in Tomas’ face in response, despite the fact that Tomas wanted so badly for him to just get  _ angry _ , to be as angry at Tomas as he was with himself.... Marcus calmly put his hand over Tomas’, lowering it, declining the confrontation. “Not trivialize,” he said softly. “Cope with.”

He stood up, beginning to pace a bit, rubbing the back of his head with a chapped hand.

“When I held Gabriel’s broken body in my arms...it broke  _ me _ . To know that child would never sing with his mum again, or play outside with his friends, or learn how to tie a bloody Windsor knot? To know that Thomas Kent won’t finish high school?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s...unfair, and it’s evil, and it’s everything the demons want us to think the world is made of. But it’s not. Not while we’re still here fighting. If you’ve taught me anything--”

Tomas ran a hand over his face, murmuring, “And how have I managed to teach  _ you  _ anything?”

Marcus stopped pacing to look at him pointedly. “Don’t be daft, Tomas. You have faith,” he said, matter-of-factly, resolutely, but sincerely. Marcus always managed to come off all three at once. “If I’m honest, sometimes you have it for the both of us.”

Tomas falls back against the wall again, eyes cast to the ceiling, wondering, with a logic only the drink could muster in him, if the eye contact would help the Father hear him better. “I thought I did.” He let out a shaky breath. “But I’m...scared.”

He expected to feel relief now that he’d said it. Admitted it with someone else in the room. But he wasn’t sure if he had the energy to feel anything.

With the heavy, familiar thud of his boots, Marcus walked toward the doorway, and Tomas sighed. Marcus had finally reached his limit trying to help him, trying to mould him into a proper exorcist, a proper man of faith, a proper...anything.

And then Marcus shut the door, closing out the crisp air. Turned back to Tomas, leaning against the door. “I know,” he said. “Me too. All the time.”

Again, there was a lull to his voice that Tomas had never really experienced--not directly. He’d calmed the frayed nerves of worried families that way; he’d cooed demon-ridden children to sleep that way. And now he was trying to comfort Tomas in the only way he knew how.

“But you’ve reminded me,” he continued, making his way back over to the bed, perching on the footboard. “That faith is all we need to remember there’s still some good out there, and we just have to make use of it. God handles the rest.”

Tomas remembered thinking that way not long ago. He  _ wanted _ to think that way. “I just want the nightmares to stop,” he said, voice gravelly with weariness. Desperation. The combination of the whiskey and Marcus had managed to strip him of any walls he’d built up the last few months.

Then came the sensation crawling under his skin again--the instinct to disappear. To hide from his own pain so he could focus on that of others. Tomorrow was another day, another case...

But then, Marcus’ voice once more, unwavering, but vulnerable in the upturned tones of a question:

“What do you need?”

The query itself was simple. But there was much just behind those four syllables, and the sheer concern and empathy in Marcus’ expression said it all.

He’d never pitied Tomas all this time--not once. He’d related to him.

Perhaps too much.

And in this, as in so many other things, all they had was each other.

_ What do you need _ ? The sincerity in Marcus’ voice made something in him break--a bridge on the verge of collapse, and he finally understood he could no longer hold himself up.

“Could you…” Tomas swallowed thickly. The request, unfiltered, poured from his lips. “Could you stay here? With me?”

Marcus looked at him for a long moment. Tilted his head to the side, smiled ever so slightly, and said, “Yeah. Of course.”

His vision was hazy to begin with, and the darkness didn’t help. But he heard the  _ thud _ of Marcus kicking off his shoes, the quiet shuffling about as he hung his jacket on the coat rack near the door; felt the shift in weight on the bed--tentative at first, a silent request for permission, which Tomas gave freely, shifting to his right a bit to give the other man room.

Tomas attempted to lie back down again, finding himself braced by the steadfast support of Marcus, who guided him onto the pillows before settling down next to him, as if this was how it had always been between them, as if it could never be any way else. Marcus always did these sorts of things effortlessly, Tomas thought absently. Whatever lack of open, human affection he’d received all his life, he never failed to give it.

Turning onto his side, Tomas faced the window, stars blinking at him in a slow pattern. Marcus draped an arm around his waist, and Tomas felt his eyes flutter shut as Marcus lightly rested his chin on Tomas’ shoulder.

“Good?” he asked, his deep, rolling voice reverberating against Tomas’ back. He’d asked countless times over the last few weeks, and Tomas always silently asked for God’s--and Marcus’s--forgiveness, for each time, he’d lied.

But tonight, he echoed, “Good,” and this time it meant less of a dubious  _ yes _ and more of an honest  _ thank you _ .

As he finally let himself sink into sleep, Tomas couldn’t help but think how all this seemed effortless to him, too. No fluttering heartbeats, no awkward spaces between their bodies or their sentences--just togetherness.

He felt pleasantly warm now. There was darkness around him and in him and waiting for him, but there was also Marcus, anchoring him to this reality and whatever God had planned for them both. That...was okay.

And ‘okay’ was a start.


End file.
